Re: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Statin Therapy in Children With Familial Hypercholesterolemia

MarilynMann wrote:
On Jun 25, 6:32 pm, David Rind <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Actually, I strongly doubt that any drug company is very interested in
studying statins in children with FH so as to boost their profits. Some
may have decided to do so for one reason or another, but it's hard to
see how there is much upside profit benefit (not that many potential
patients), compared to the downside risk that the drugs will turn out to
be harmful in children.

So even if you want to take the position that all drug-company sponsored
research is tainted, if I were a profit-maximizing drug company I'd
rather not study this at all or I'd try to tip the results to show no
benefit in children. (I'm not such a conspiracy theorist as to think
they would actually do such a thing.)



I did not mean to say that all drug company sponsored research is
tainted. Sorry about that.

I was really replying to Susan's post, not Marilyn's.

A major problem with learning whether any medications (not just lipid-lowering medications) work in children and pregnant women is that drug companies see little upside in learning the answer and lots of downside risk from litigation.

Nothing I was writing was meant to imply that I think the benefits of statins have been proven in children with FH. Just that I don't think we need to worry that drug companies will be going out of their way to rig studies to falsely show such benefits.

There are lots of people with an interest in positive study results unconnected to drug companies, so this is not meant to suggest that others (authors, societies, granting agencies) won't try to spin surrogate endpoints as convincing proof of benefit in children.

--
David Rind
drind@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

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